A popular New York based news media company The Daily Beast has apologized for publishing an article accused of promoting an anti-gay sentiment. The article which was published on The Daily Beast website last week has since been removed after receiving a public backlash. In the article, the straight writer Nico Hines used a gay dating site (Grindr) to hook up with three men staying in the Olympic village. The men were not named but according to Hines one of the men came from a “notoriously homophobic country”.

Amini Fonua was among the first to react publicly to the article, he tweeted on Friday “As an out gay athlete from a country that is still very homophobic @thedailybeast ought to be ashamed”.

He added, “Imagine the one space you can feel safe, the one space you're able to be yourself, ruined by a straight person who thinks it's all a joke?”

“No straight person will ever know the pain of revealing your truth, to take that away is just...can't. It literally brings me to tears.”

After pulling the article The Daily Beast published a note “Our initial reaction was that the entire removal of the piece was not necessary. We were wrong. We’re sorry. And we apologize to the athletes who may have been inadvertently compromised by our story…today we did not uphold a deep set of The Daily Beast’s values. These values—which include standing up to bullies and bigots, and specifically being a proudly, steadfastly supportive voice for LGBT people all over the world."